There is a new and improved GOP in Washington. Or so we are told. No doubt that there is a lot of fresh blood in the House of Representatives, but when it comes to the Senate it is pretty much the same old crew of disappointments that have been selling us out to the left for years. There are some new faces and some of the old faces are acceptable to the conservative palate but for the most part your average Republican in the Senate would wipe his or her rear end with the Constitution if given the opportunity. And they have done just that many times so spare me the frivolous defense of their liberal ways.

There is a lot of talk about the tests that will face the Republican Party in Washington during the months ahead. But with "Write-In" leading in the Alaska Senate race, which in all likelihood means a victory by Lisa Murkowski up there, that will be the first real test for the GOP in the Senate if she indeed wins.

Lisa Murkowski is a current Republican Senator who lost in the primaries to a man named Joe Miller. Instead of accepting that the voters of the Republican Party in Alaska no longer wanted her services, she mounted a write in campaign, got judges to violate election law on her behalf and fought tooth and nail in the general election against the chosen Republican candidate. With the help of liberals who knew their own candidate on the Democratic Party ticket was a hopeless cause, Ms. Murkowski is on the verge of a win. She also had a great deal of support from self-professed conservatives, who are not conservatives at all but just leaches suckling at the teat of the federal government and afraid that a Murkowski loss to Miller would mean having to actually compete in life. See, these sad sacks have made their lives off of gathering government largess and Joe Miller was a serious threat to cut their lifeline. They could not have that.

Despite once having had an "R" next to her name, Lisa Murkowski was not very conservative. She was, in fact, much more closely aligned with those who sport "D"s next to their name. Case and point is Ms. Murkowski has repeatedly stated in awe that anyone would suggest that the powers of our federal government are few and specifically defined. She talks down to anyone with such thoughts as though they are crazy.

Doubt me? With regards to various functions our federal government has taken on over the years and for which Ms. Murkowski had no justification for, she actually uttered the following bit of babble. "That somehow or other these are unconstitutional because they’re not enumerated within the powers of the constitution, that somehow or other we should just be eliminating these, I think that is out of the mainstream." (source) Whether or not they are out of the mainstream however is a moot point. What matters is the truth and the truth is something that Ms. Murkowski avoids like the plague.

She believes this claptrap about the government being able to do whatever it wants because Ms. Murkowski has the intellectual capacity of a burned out light bulb. I know, how insensitive to me to tell the truth so bluntly about someone so incompetent. But you and I both know that even if James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton all came back from the dead and told her that she was oh so very wrong, sweet little Lisa would look at them with a dumbfounded look wondering who these upstarts thought they were to confront her.

Ms. Murkowski is also a fan of socialized medicine once saying, "It's not so much that the government-run plan is in and of itself a bad thing. We have government-run health care right now with Medicare, and Medicaid, and the VA system and the IHS system. We have it. So, I am not so afraid to say that we cannot absolutely, positively not have a government-run plan, but what we have to have is a government-run plan that actually works." Such an intellect. She actually cites programs like Medicare and Medicaid that are driving doctors away so fast by not paying them a market rate for their services and the VA, whose problems are widely documented, as evidence that government-run health care is not "in and of itself a bad thing"? Let me hearken back to the American classic "Animal House". To paraphrase Boon's response to Otter when he questioned Bluto's reference to the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor, "Forget it, she's rolling."

Yes, with gems like these Ms. Murkowski is in the running every month for the title of most inept Republican in the Senate. Her biggest challengers as of late for this coveted award have been Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of whom hail from Maine, Lindsay Graham from South Carolina and John McCain from Arizona.

If, and most likely when, Lisa Murkowski returns to the Senate for another six miserable years of delusional ramblings, she will probably desire to caucus with the Republicans who have in the past welcomed her with open arms. After all she would want to keep her seniority intact. But the GOP must have some courage if she tries that tactic. There is no reason to give Murkowski the time of day if you are the Republicans. Control of the Senate is not in question if Ms. Murkowski is told to go pound salt and forced to make nice with her fellow travelers on the other side of the isle. And it's not like selling your soul for power and coddling a liberal goof like Lisa Murkowski would be a good excuse for welcoming her with open arms even if control of that particular house were in the balance.

If this is the first real test for the Republicans will they get the message? Or will they give Lisa Murkowski a big sloppy, wet kiss? The later will spur a lot of anger among the base of the party and make a lot of questions be asked that Republican Senators do not want to answered. While most of the Senators up for reelection in two years are going to be liberal Democrats, there will be some Republicans too. And we will not forget.